Swinter

 

That's what I'm calling this new season we're having.

Wednesday it was nice enough that the boss and I took a five-mile hike up into Lost Valley State Forest.

It was beautiful, cool and brisk when we started out at shortly after seven, just starting to get a little overwarm when we hiked out. Along the way we were entertained by a sleepy mama porcupine snoozing in a tree, heard an etude of bird song, including first of the year Eastern Towhee and Ovenbird, and a probably Black-throated Green Warbler that only called once or twice, plus all the stunning beauty of early spring in the Adirondack foothills.

The boss kept pointing out evidence that the land was farmed some time long ago, foundations of old buildings, a filled in laid up stone well casing, and then a tiny cemetery he spotted.

I have hiked in alone and in a group several times before and never noticed it, even though it is right next to the road. We were able to decipher some of the names without getting down into the tangle of wild rose bushes that was slowly devouring it. Grabbed a few photos too.

Upon returning home I searched for the names on the stones, Rowland and Eleanor Bell, and to my astonishment, found them both on this page and in the 1885 NY Census.

How cool is that!

Which brings me to a bit of a conundrum. My mother was an avid and skilled genealogist. She gathered information on both hers and my father's families for most of her life. It is stuffed in folders and saved on CDs and probably stashed in the innards of their computers. It is a lot. Civil War records, cemetery records, census, immigrant records, records going back to Ireland, Scotland, France, and who knows where else!

 What on earth are we going to do about this? It would be a terrible shame to waste all that work. For now we are piling the stuff in one place and saving it. If I was 30 again and had time on my hands I would study it and continue with it. In fact back when I actually was in that age group we chased gravestones for Mom over much of Fulton County.

However, I am simply too darned old. And too darned busy. By the time I got up to speed on the material it would be time to hand it off again. What to do...what to do...any ideas friends?

Anyhow, I digress. We had a great day Wednesday and birding has been spectacular since, new arrivals every day. Making up for lost time due to the cruddy weather we have been having I guess. 

And now today. Wild, whipping, winds, snippy, cold, creeping, rain, making the boss move the car away from the trees. And snow in the forecast!

Three species of birds at the feeder this morning...three! Guess I will do housework and hope for Spring to leave Swinter behind....and soon!

The NY Plastic Bag Ban

Gonna be an endangered species now.

Went into effect a couple of days ago, but today was our first experience with it.

It went exactly as expected. 

It was hard to know how many bags to take into the store. We didn't think we wanted much stuff, so we took two. Of course once you are inside the store you see a dozen things you forgot you needed......

At the checkout there was no place to put items that had been scanned except on top of a tiny little paper bag holder.

Thus while the boss put up stuff I had to bag at full speed just to keep up. Neither of us was able to even glance at the readout to make sure the right price was charged for each item. 

We took the jacket we got for Peggy's upcoming birthday out without a bag...I will not give the state their 3 cents for a paper bag....because when all is said and done this is just a tax. (Somebody ran up a huge budget deficit so somebody else has to pay....)

It is also a massive, pointless, PIA. People behind us in line were grumbling furiously, faced with the same nuisance. It took significantly longer to get out of the store for each and every person in each and every line. There is just no way to do your own bagging in your random, squashy, tippy, kinda useless, politically correct, bags and do it quickly.

Surprise, surprise.

However, I see a great opportunity for some entrepreneur, (which, alas, I am not) to print  "reusable" bags with protest slogans, (The bag ban s**ks for example) political rhetoric, and/or anything that will help us all vent. It might cause rioting at the checkout, but I don't think so. So far Facebook is the only place I have seen or heard anyone happy with the deal. Checkers and shoppers sure aren't.

Personally, I would gladly buy bags that offered an opinion matching mine on our esteemed governor's rules and regulations, including this one. Or maybe they could mention bail reform.

 I've been thinking about this concept since the ban was proposed, and I did see some bags of that sort....may have been photo shopped, but maybe someone is already making them.

If so I would like to invest....

Here is a well-researched article on why the ban is ill-conceived and probably won't work anyhow.

Bag the Ban. 

Well worth a read....

Here's an excerpt, with numbers I have seen quoted in several other places. 

"According to Recyc- Québec, nearly 78% of people reuse their “single-use” plastic bags, most often as a small trash can liner or to pick up pet waste. Research from the University of Sydney found that after California’s plastic bag ban, the sales of thicker, more resource-intensive plastic trash bags skyrocketed.Once plastic bags were banned, Californians started buying trash bags for their everyday use instead of reusing the shopping bags that they were previously getting at no charge. Coupled with an increase in paper bag usage, the research found that California’s plastic bag ban increased in carbon emissions."

In other words, the ban is not just intrusive and annoying, it is counterproductive.

Which has been obvious to anyone who actually thought about it since it was proposed.

This Song

Because Yankee Hill Lock isn't supposed to look like this

Because it fits perfectly.

Especially the lyrics....."Canadian cold front movin' in....."

And staying, and staying, and staying and staying.....

Tax Freedom Day

Found this cultivated into a farmer's field up near the folks' house.
Dunno why it is there, but it sure seems fitting for the day

Ain't gonna be here for a while yet in beautiful, Upstate NY. You can see how your state stacks up in the gouging and grabbing  taxation situation by checking the map in the story. Ours stacks up pretty much in the pits with a long way before anyone sees daylight.

Perfect

Although it is fairy warm today, it is gloomy and glum and water-on-icy-nobirdsaround, bah humbug January.

A perfect day to work on tax documentation and getting all the accounts in order.

Right?

Because math and record keeping and all.

So....until later....